Artistic Autonomy and Sublimity in N. M. Rashed’s Hassan, the Potter: A Kantian Perspective

Abstract

By employing Immanuel Kant’s theory of aesthetics and beauty, this article scrutinizes N.M. Rashed’s most celebrated Urdu poem, Hassan Koozagar translated in English as Hassan, the Potter (Noori, 2013) in a bid to establish the artistic and aesthetic infallibility, untranslatability of text and sublimity of Rashed’s art. Kantian parameters of aesthetics bestow upon art an unparalleled autonomy, independence from contextualization and totality, thereby, declaring artistic creation the unique embodiment of its creator’s individualistic and subjective feelings and sensations. This idiosyncratically subjective cum creative experience of an artist-the coordination of sensations- molded and steered by perception which is combination of both space and time, lends the artistic creation of Hassan, the Potter an autonomous existence, sublimity, universality and transcendence that cannot be defined, conceptualized or even translated. In Kantian perspective, art as an artistically unique and intricately structured phenomenon, is Beautiful that is free from the sociological, historical, economic, or anthropological underpinnings; it has its own existence, formulation and appeal. This research, furthermore, argues that the translation of N.M. Rashed’s poem, though, facilitating dialogue between two languages and cultures, might convey theme/vision to readers but it lacks transferring of the real essence of text. This research has got the ability to open new vistas and modes of interpretation of Urdu works translated in English in particular and Pakistani literature in general.